just let me be
the clouds and
i might rain on
whoever I
please

drive miles out
open up, find a
spot you never were
you owe no one an
explanation for
screaming or crying
admit to all the things
you did and go,
show up and expect
nothing, you don't need
roots, that is why you have
hands, nimble and ever busy
always searching, you don't
need roots, your fingers
have always done a fine
job of digging in so
drive miles out
open up, find a
spot you never were
the newest things are
always scary and
you are infinitely
cautious but despite
the ticks in your surface
are so worthy of good
things.

i think he was trying to say goodbye
up there.

there's always room for a last hurrah,
and I kept stealing it away
what you want doesn't always matter, princess

he tried, a little.
to soften the ground
not the fall,

show me he still cared
breaking ties was too much
so he was only trying to undo
them, set me out into
the hollow and
watch me float
away.

i suppose that is the end of that.

i would have
withered away
the way insects
do at the bottom
of a local water tank

an old stray dog
panting between
street signs in the
boonies,

I have never fully
feared obscurity
but I would if I
slept like the dead
and found comfort
beneath a neon moon.

I would head home but
I have no home and that's okay
because I'm not the same and
all the people who
used to know me wouldn't find me
even if they tried because
they'd be looking for all the things
that made up
who I used to be

there's the space by
the blue door where
he'd drop his boots--
actually he'd put them
anywhere, but I noticed
the lack of them this morning
and felt the weight of the roof
and Orion and that constellation
shaped like an M--so i pressed the
roses into chapter 31 of The Count of
Monte Cristo and curled an old shirt
beneath my sheets because I have to
keep him somehow.

i still hang my arms
out the window because
i need to feel the wind
i'd never call myself claustrophobic
but i've always been fonder of
wide places, as much as
my house feels like a
trench i still walk in
and breathe home
whether god is there
immediately or not
I have chosen to
believe he is present
in the most petty of
circumstances, even
then as I sat on my bed
debating the gas mileage
to his house, and instead
taking off my shorts
and turning off the light--
that each of these low blows
has been engineered and if
rolling with the punches
were any more true, (possibly
caustic) then I am willing
to take each hit or
throw a few if need


be.

the problem is i know
you so much better,
you've got a lot of
that real hurt, with a
ghost swimming around
in a shell,

with a mama you love
'cause she gave you that life
and played in the mud, gave
you the ol' one-two when it
called for it, (or when you didn't)
and a daddy who never had to
say much which is where you
got that hint of altruism,

but you still found yourself
raising a brother, lookin' out
protecting the property,
growing up too fast with
no one understanding,
taught to rely on a good
team member or a good
fight, the good fight,

but you've got more than
a pass waiting on you, more
than pretty girls at bars, crashes
on bikes, nights full of stars,
all those ways your mom didn't
pull through or pull in, and i hope
you find them, i hope you find all of them
every good and pure thing out in the day
and i hope whatever's in your heart gets a
good chance to breathe and that  no
one find you in your time of change,
just after when you're healed up
and pretty,
not that you haven't been

'cause you are kinda pretty.

breathe a little
with me,
open up that chest
a bit, you have time
but not for this,
i can see you coming
back, a ways out
around the bend
with that pretty smile
I've missed,
an' no one out there
as happy to see you
as me, your arms
are leanin' up
a few weeks
done you real good,
so keep walking
keeping on coming
i've been scared to
have you back under
this roof but you never
did care much for theatrics
come home brooke,
come home.

At the beginning he was
worried about what people might
say, as if there were mountains of
secrets at his front door--

People talk, I think.

And maybe some of it was true,
I'm not sure now,
the wounded climb
and reach, bring out
the potential for weakness
or subconsciously expect you
to be the same as the firsts
Or lasts,

I dunno, I'm crying in
Chucks office, trying desperately
to say that I feel *****,  
it all comes out,
I tell him about your note
to God buried in your wallet--

im not good enough for a good man
I say, and I cannot look at him.

People talk, I think.
maybe some of it is true,
i'm not sure,
but I will not go there again
or share myself so unabashedly

good enough, for a good man.

Late at night
I petition God
for happiness

oh well he's
still looking for his Mary
dressed in black, a vice
for him (or a grip)
with smoke curling
out of her ears, ready
to take him away, he ain't
no devil but he sure as hell
looking for the woman herself
with hips swinging always loaded
made fresh in the Rye factories
a tall glass but she always empty
he's lookin' for them girls to fill,
that have followed him 'round
since 2010--least that's what she said
the ground is hard, packed and trodden
but that's where she is, curled up in
florals and denim, she still
burnt as the core of a fire
and they always go out
you've seen it, woken
up in the morning
with crumpled tin
buried in white ash
and wood so black
it just crumbles.

It takes a while
to settle into new
choices, i would
tell you that you
will always be my
my
my
but you aren't mine
to call my, my, my
but you were my
Link.

I am       s c a r e d
to
    
              
                                    
                              j
                                ­u
                                    m
                         ­               p


                              
                      there is nothing to land on

who laughs when
the suns hits her
face and breathes
good morning
into every waking
moment because
every moment is
w a k i n g -- calls every
d o u b l e - y o l k  e g g
a sweet baby and wants
to move the living room
rug just so she can dance.

most of these things
still feel pretty empty--
Miss Rebecca prayed
for me today, got all
misty-eyed when I
started to get choked
up, sweet-girlin me
and letting me play
with her grandson's
hair, he's so soft
and new like
babies are, with
them big watery
eyes the color
of pond algae
so little and
alive, and I
sorta don't
hear what
she's asking
God, i'm too
busy rubbing
his back--
thinking about
all the parts of
me i'm gettin'
back, and every
time I turn around
and go home instead
of runnin' his way.

I don't
have the
things they
love.

i am the sand of sand
there's an awful lot of questions
that i would like answered

what a threat to be erased.

or i will erase you completely

people are strange and

the quota for that is filled--

one time is enough to be

told such an ugly thing.

there are eggs on the stove.


and the house is clean, been
gettin' enough sleep, a little
bit free when you drop some
constraints, put up a little
gate--
and the right people like
to come as they please,
the wrong just sorta
skim the outskirts
pace the edge of
town and find
themselves wet
rags to peel out
of bed, but I am

rising
to meet
the day.

god has spoken
help me listen
help me listen

is it really like that?
I wonder, him not
sayin' a thing and
ignoring you after
he gets off,  i still
hurt about that
about bein' looked
through and through
like I wasn't even there
but lord if that's the
last thing on his mind
anymore, a silly girl
silly, silly
girl.

it's still very strange
to silence a place as
you walk past
or to hear that you
are a ***** from drunks
i once thought that
love carried over
into rough circumstances
but I can see that people
will gather on sides
proclaiming their support
and hurling rocks--
i just never thought
he'd be the one to
listlessly watch
it happen.

Perhaps it is not made for me—
I’m afraid if happiness ever prevailed
to settle upon me it
might be swept away suddenly and
without warning

I have feared that my entire life;
every small joy I have gripped with
the hands of a child
it’s tendrils curled in the web of my
fingers, rare as Vigné a Farinet
fleeting,

Always

Fleeting.

the window
always needs
to be opened.

even the air
needs room to
move and billow

like white noise
i  need to be reminded
to breathe, or keep driving

to will, to forgive
to let things hurt a little
and then move along
not think too much
about the way things were

the windows
always need to
be open, one
arm out, with a
good song to fill
you up, remind
you to breathe--
like the air,
in and out
in and out

out

out.

how can
they call
it special

when just any
girl will do?

After thomas died—

I started getting tattoos because
I was suffocating myself in grief
drowning daily in my bed,
in the bathroom, in the yard
laying beached in the grass
beneath a deluge of confusion
no water for miles but I am still
Sinking

Drifting through the Surrey hallways
as an apparition, his blood
on my shins
Garrett’s muffled voice asking
If we could just clean her up

Not yet, we need pictures.

I am a callow soul, his death has stripped me
my mother is calling me a silly girl for
The Psalms on my forearm
Luke across my thigh  
for Nehemiah down my spine
I am trying not to die and
all she can focus on is
the wisp of a golden girl gone

This is the catalyst,
the turning point, the ordained moment—
I have not had many of these but when they come they are all encompassing;
I am suddenly not me anymore but
Wet clay, the potter has unmade
me nearly beyond recognition

death has come
And the lord has let it shape me

Death came and it almost took me—
I fought for my life and all my mother could say was

Silly girl


..

i had this dream about you
and your brother, not the one
where you were a boy and I led
you out of the woods--

but we were down by the ocean
and i stood in your shack surrounded
by that thick, mustard yellow carpet from
the 70's and a pair of old workboots, I couldn't
drain the sink but that didn't matter because
i could hear you outside,
rustling around inside your pockets
your jeans were filled with condoms
what did you expect, brooke? you
ask me, palms out and up, I shake my head.

what?  in that carhartt and vest.
What? louder.
you start towards me and I realize
that this is a dream I can't wake up
from, the deck is disappearing, the
house disintegrates, your boots
sound hollow on ocean water
and the only thing I can see
are the minnows scattering
your hands out to your sides
yelling
*what
     di d  you e   x pe ct

Early spring, a couple weeks ago;

You came over to help me burn the rest of
The dry brush and weeds in my backyard
Because the day before I nearly burnt down the back fence

we stood by the west pickets and watched the
cows grazing in Seufer’s pasture, mostly silent
A perfectly cool morning, mild in the sun but
We could still see our breath—

I made you coffee and we leaned
against the warm gate of your truck
to talk about nothing, enjoying the
Quiet lull, the unusually busy traffic on my
street

You said you had to go and we hugged
because we always do, always long,
longer than we should

And that’s the last time we saw each other.